Key Takeaways
- Tyler Webb follows Brandon Esler a youth hockey referee through 11 games in two days at one of North America’s largest tournaments
- By day Brandon Esler, works at EventConnect, the tournament management technology platform. By night and weekend, he’s on the ice.
- Nearly every parent, coach, and player interviewed pointed to parent behavior as the top driver of the ref shortage
- Rising youth sports costs are intensifying sideline emotions, creating a direct pipeline from financial pressure to official burnout
- Young referees, particularly girls officiating boys hockey, report quitting early due to abuse from adults who often don’t know the rules
A Camera on the Thankless Job
Most youth sports fans have opinions about referees. Few have spent a full game day watching one work.
A new video from content creator Tyler Webb does exactly that, embedding with Brandon Esler, a 15-year veteran youth hockey official, across a 10-plus hour Saturday at a major North American tournament. Esler worked six games that day after five the night before. His crew, including linespersons Luke and Cassandra, described similar workloads, with Luke noting he hadn’t had a night off in two weeks and was on pace for over 40 games in January alone.
The footage captures everything from pre-game rituals (Pledge furniture spray doubles as visor cleaner, apparently) to the physical toll of lace bite and dehydration. But the real story isn’t on the ice. It’s in the stands.
What Parents, Players, and Coaches Actually Said
While Esler officiated, Webb interviewed spectators and participants with one question: why do you think there’s a referee shortage?
The responses were nearly unanimous. Parents.
Interviewees described a pattern where financial investment in youth sports creates a sense of entitlement. One parent compared the dynamic to keyboard warriors: adults screaming at someone behind glass they’ll never have to face in conversation. Multiple respondents noted that parents often don’t understand the rules they’re arguing about, which compounds frustration on both sides.
A former young female referee offered one of the video’s most telling moments. She stopped officiating boys hockey because coaches and parents didn’t understand how difficult the job was or know the actual rules. That anecdote reflects a broader trend: USA Hockey and other governing bodies have reported persistent difficulty retaining young officials, with verbal abuse cited as a leading factor.
“If someone is sitting in the stands thinking maybe I’ll become a referee, and then they see that happen, why would they?” Esler said during a postgame debrief.
The Cost Pressure Connection
Several interviewees drew a direct line between rising participation costs and escalating sideline behavior. The logic is straightforward: as families invest more financially, the emotional stakes climb with them. A missed call doesn’t just feel like a bad break. It feels like a threat to an investment.
Esler validated that observation, noting that the financial pressure creates what he called an “easy outlet” where parents direct frustration at the one person in the building they don’t know and won’t see again.
He also pointed out something counterintuitive: officials tend to get yelled at more at lower competition levels, where parent knowledge of the rules is typically lowest. That gap between emotional investment and rules literacy is where much of the friction lives.
A Referee Who Also Builds the Software
What makes Esler’s perspective particularly useful is his dual role. By day, he works at EventConnect, the tournament management technology platform. By night and weekend, he’s on the ice.
Esler described the connection as intentional. After graduating university and joining EventConnect, he continued refereeing specifically so he could speak credibly to the tournament operators and facility partners he works with on the software side. When he’s on site at a tournament, he’s both officiating games and doing live product intake, observing firsthand what organizers deal with and bringing those insights back to his team on Monday.
It’s a feedback loop that benefits both roles, and it gives EventConnect a ground-level perspective on the operational realities of running tournaments, including the officiating crisis that affects scheduling, game quality, and event viability.
Why the Ref Shortage Is an Industry Problem
The youth sports referee shortage isn’t just an inconvenience. It’s a structural challenge that affects every level of the ecosystem, from local house leagues to national showcases. Games get delayed or canceled. Fewer officials means heavier workloads for those who remain, accelerating burnout. And the pipeline of young people willing to enter officiating continues to narrow.
Webb’s video ends with Esler’s pitch for why someone should consider becoming an official: community, deeper knowledge of the game, physical activity, schedule flexibility, and supplemental income. It’s a reasonable case. But the footage that precedes it makes clear that the industry still has work to do on the environment those officials are walking into.
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